Page 69 of The Orc's Captive Bride
“Lasseran doesn’t know. About reversing the curse.”
“I don’t believe so, no. He thinks these texts will help him perfect his control ritual. Make it stronger. More permanent.”
“But if I find the answer first…”
“We might have a chance to stop him. To free the orcs rather than enslave them further.”
She closed her eyes, thinking hard. Three days to find a counter-curse hidden in an ancient text written in a language she’d only started learning a week ago.
The academic part of her brain said it was impossible.
But the part of her that had already done impossible things—survived being pulled through a portal, learned a new languagewith shocking speed, and stood up to a High King—said it might not be.
“I need to understand the Veilborn’s role,” she said, opening her eyes. “If they created the curse, they must have left clues. Instructions. Something.”
“We did.” Vorlag pulled another scroll toward them. “But those clues have been lost or destroyed over the centuries. All that remains are fragments. Pieces of a larger puzzle.”
“Then we put the puzzle together.”
“It’s not that simple?—”
“It never is.” She squared her shoulders. “But I’m very good at puzzles, Vorlag. Show me what you have.”
For the next several hours, they worked.
Vorlag brought out texts she hadn’t seen before. Ancient scrolls that had been carefully preserved in the deepest parts of the library. Some were so fragile they could barely be touched. But all of them contained pieces of the truth—references to binding rituals, mentions of blood magic and sacrifice, oblique discussions of balance and natural order.
And underneath it all, a thread of something else.
Guilt.
The original Veilborn priests had known what they were creating was wrong. They had understood the moral weight of cursing an entire people, even if their original intentions had been good. They’d hidden their objections in careful language and buried their protests in footnotes and marginal notes.
But it was there.
“They regretted it,” she said, running her finger along a particularly dense passage. “The priests who helped create the Curse. They knew it was wrong even as they did it.”
“Yes, but they served the throne and the throne commanded.”
“Just following orders,” she said bitterly. “Where have I heard that before?”
Vorlag winced. “It was also a dangerous time. The Five Kingdoms needed the power of the Beast Curse. They didn’t know it would go so wrong. And believe me, I’ve spent years grappling with my own complicity. My own silence in the face of atrocity.”
“What changed?”
“I did. Or rather, I finally admitted what I’d always known—that obedience to evil is itself evil. That institutions built on injustice deserve to fall.”
“Even if it costs you everything?”
“Especially then.” He met her eyes. “Because what good is safety if it requires betraying everything you claim to value?”
She thought of Khorrek, and of the terrible choice he faced between loyalty to the High King and loyalty to his own conscience, between what he’d been taught and what he felt.
“Khorrek is going to have to choose,” she said quietly. “Eventually Lasseran will force him to choose between obedience and what’s right. And I don’t know which way he’ll go.”
“He’s already choosing,” Vorlag said. “Every time he shows you kindness or questions an order. Every small act of rebellion is a choice.”
“But will it be enough? When it really matters?”
